Proposal description

This proposal is coming up short on time because it is a response to an issue we encountered recently on the Dash Across America Tour. We were shunned by the Las Vegas Meetup Group for our support of Dash - we were then booted from the Austin Bitcoin Meetup Group for the same reason. We hosted the Bitcoin meetups at the bookstore we are in the process of buying (Brave New Books)- we would like to combat the negativity by raising awareness of Dash despite their attempts to silence it. See more here: Bitcoin.com Bus Shunned by Las Vegas Bitcoin Meetup Group

We think this will be a creative, effective, and fun way to get people involved with Dash, and a non combative way to respond to the "haters".

It has been said that we need to bring more people to Dash. With this proposal, we hope to make Austin, TX a major hub for Dash use and support.

Proposal:

We are asking Dash to sponsor the stage at Brave New Books, we are seeking resources to help the store promote Dash to it’s customers and community, and we want Dash to sponsor the brand new decentralized technology meetup we are launching September 11th.

The Brave Stage

Brave New Books has been around for ten years, providing underground literature, natural health products, and an amazing meetup space to the local liberty and crypto communities. We were the first brick and mortar in the State of Texas to accept bitcoin and we were the first brick and mortar in the country to accept Dash. We have long promoted cryptocurrencies and decentralized technology to our customers and our community.

Our stage is a beloved location for people who love all things liberty and cryptocurrency. We host weekly events with intimate crowds and a few smash hit events per month (sometimes we bring in crowds upwards of 100 people).

We have hosted two 512Bitcoin mini-conferences during SXSW (featured on WSJ), we have hosted the after party for the TX Bitcoin Conference, we have hosted some big crypto names like Cody Wilson of Defense Distributred, Lynn Ulbricht, Yoshi Goto of BitMain Tech, Paul Puey of Airbitz, Nick Spanos of the NYC Bitcoin Center, Dimitri of Mycellium, Tatiana Moroz singer/songwriter, Julia Tourinski of Brave the World, and many others.

This will be a valuable place to have a dash banner as it will provide repeated exposure to hundreds of like - minded audience members and an unlimited number of online viewers. When an event is organized by the store, which larger events most often are, we will vocally promote Dash to those in attendance.

10 Year Anniversary Mini Conference and Party

The end of August is the 10 year anniversary of Brave New Books! We are hosting a mini-conference and party September 10th that will probably be the bookstore's event of the year. For year 9 we had Jimi Vaughan play! We have great speakers lined up like Cody Wilson and Jim Marrs, who pack the house when they speak. The attendance will be large and will allow us to reach out to a very like minded group repeatedly through the day.

Frequent Events

We would love to have a dash logo on stage at this and every event for the next 3 months. We have weekly events like Eddie Craig's Traffic Law Seminar, and special events like Adam Kokesh's Sept 4th speech. Every month hundreds of people attend events at our store and could be exposed to dash.

Decentralized Technology Meetup

The day after our 10 year anniversary party (Sunday September 11th) we would like to launch the first Austin Decentralized Technology Meetup - sponsored by Dash. We will provide speakers/presentations every other week, while providing the space for weekly meetups. At these meetups we will help set up new users with dash wallets and teach them how to use them. We will promote dash no matter the decentralized topic we are discussing. The first focus for the meetup: DASH!

Austin Technology

Austin is a technology hub with a large cryptocurrency community. We plan to create a movement around this meetup, providing the tech industry with great content and mingle opportunities. We will be able to introduce the Austin Tech culture to Dash. We expect the meetup to consist of 20-30 attendees, hopefully more as we grow. This will take place during the same time slot that the bitcoin meetup took place. Sundays at 5pm.

Dash Pizza and Drinks

We would like to provide free pizza and drinks to meetup attendees that we buy using Dash. This is how the Austin Bitcoin Meetup grew their meetup - attendance immediately began to wane when they stopped providing free pizza. Bottom line, pizza really draws a crowd out and makes for a fun and inviting atmosphere to talk shop. This will help immensely with attendance.

Community Outreach

This meetup will be a great way to encourage the other small businesses on the south drag in Austin to accept Dash as payment, and cater to the regular weekly meeting of Dash lovers. This can be a fun way to grow the Dash community in a very localized manner. We can hand out fliers to students and shoppers on the Drag, we can also set up information booths on the sidewalk out front. Brave is located on a very busy intersection in Austin right on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. Great opportunity for outreach.

Brave Point of Sale

Brave associates are used to taking bitcoin, dash, silver and barter as payment. We are versed in all things crypto and we enjoy spreading the word. With a flier for every customer, our team has the perfect conversation tool at the point of sale. This is a great opportunity to set up Jaxx wallets on the spot. We will also provide fliers to community members who want to flier the general public. This will help us to grow the dash economy through personal relationships.

Three Months

By sponsoring the stage and the meetup for three months we can get a realistic picture of what the dash community in Austin can accomplish. This will allow us to host 6 presentations, and capture the bitcoin and privacy friendly audience at Brave New Books as they pass through to shop or attend other events. This will give us enough time to see the fruits of our labor begin to bloom.

Bonus

As a special bonus we can create some street-level advertising for Dash in the form of window decals and a sandwich board. We are on the corner of Martin Luther King Blvd and Guadalupe Street in downtown Austin. We are right across from UT campus and students walk by all day. This signage would be seen by many people in cars and on foot.

Discussion: Should we fund this proposal?

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Mastermined0 points,9 months ago

cross post...
any updates here? pictures of the new larger dash banner? other pictures "Signage for stage, front of store, and back of store"?
how many people on average attended the weekly meetup? is it growing?
when will the Roger Ver thing take place?
is there a pizza place that takes dash in austin? Where do y'all get the pizza from?
how many people have bought something at BNB with bitcoin? with dash? How much $?
thanks

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Mastermined2 points,11 months ago

cross post...
i like the idea but it's a bit expensive and have one suggestion.
a guaranteed way to make sure people get the dash message is to have them directly interact with the currency. so how about promising to give away 5 or 10 dash (out of the 100) every month to people who set up a wallet, maybe give 20-40 people .25/.50 dash or something like that.

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tycoonheaven1 point,10 months ago

genius!

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Dworf0 points,11 months ago

free "give aways" do not help. Nobody sees value in something that he gets for free

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Mastermined0 points,11 months ago

we've already been over this. this is marketing 101 and the biggest companies in the world continue to do it for a reason, because it works.
dash has done it several times now and will continue to do it with the soda machine and other promotions.
if you have a better way of promoting adoption please share it.

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Montaguy2 points,11 months ago

So with the Dash Tour, The Dash to Adoption, and now a stage sponsorship, whatever that means, the Dash network will be giving a total of $24,000 to a couple from Texas who run a small store. Do we the Dash community not see the problems with this? The Dash protocol should not be personal piggy bank for small business owners.

Also, from the proposal description the owner seems very adversarial towards bitcoin. Publicly calling out and shaming the LV bitcoin meet up is not something we should be proud of as the owner of this proposal clearly is. She says also bitcoin Austin meet up is moving locations over their public display with the LV meet up. I know the organizer of that meet up called Dash a scam coin but do we really want to publicly shame people on Facebook like this and then go on to create a precedent that starting drama is reason to fund your projects. This is not what Dash is about. We should be promoting the technology and the projects that build that out not the increasingly public people who are becoming the face of Dash. My vote is No.

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Dworf3 points,11 months ago

Agreed to the fullest. Especially the Facebook thing looks shady. There is already enough drama and every new drama or conflict is a big step backwards.

From your references not a single one promotes, accepts or even mentions DASH (Mycelium excepted):
- Cody Wilson of Defense Distributred - shop links to Amazon
- Lynn Ulbricht - she's busy with the case of her son and it would not be wise to link DASH to it
- Yoshi Goto of BitMain Tech - Bitcoin centric
- Paul Puey of Airbitz - no announcement of DASH integration (that would be helpful)
- Nick Spanos of the NYC Bitcoin Center - not connected to DASH anyways
- Dimitri of Mycellium - Mycelium integrates DASH anyways
- Tatiana Moroz singer/songwriter - has her own 'coin' Tatianacoin - DASH not mentioned
- Julia Tourinski of Brave the World - accepts PP and BTC only

Next point is (what I thought already on the "Dash Across America Tour" that the outreach of that amount of money has no measurable ROI. At the current stage of DASH nobody will be interested in acquiring DASH to use it in a single small bookstore. What is needed are internet cases where the use of DASH is a real advantage.

If this kind of proposals appears more often I will print my own flyers and share them through homeless people who will be very happy to being payed.

$24000 would have fund a DASH integration to Openbazaar or setup a service like all4dash.com. Setup this kind of service and you'll get my 'yes' vote.

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catherinebleish (proposal owner)0 points,11 months ago

My reference was the big bitcoin names that have been to our store, we have not held a large crypto event since our list 512Bitcoin Mini Conference and at that point I had never heard of Dash! Now is our chance to bring them in :D

Sure we have some measurable ROI, we know at least some of the number of people we have set up with dash wallets (I am sure others have without our knowlege), we know at least some of the times times dash has been written about by online media and posted on facebook to followers because of the title of our speech. We know that some big names in bitcoin and liberty have created dash wallets because of us. We also know that some big online companies like CheapAir and Airbitz are discussing how to integrate Dash. We have been planting massive seeds. Check out the list of accomplishments John put together last week in my first response to @Montaguy.

In sales you learn that some customers have to be touched 7 to 12 times before they will "bite". We have touched a LOT of people on this tour and mini have already "bit".

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catherinebleish (proposal owner)0 points,11 months ago

many* Excuse typoes we are literally driving the bus through Kansas City.

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catherinebleish (proposal owner)0 points,11 months ago

Hi @Montaguy - I hear your concerns, they are valid. Let me respond!

1. The dash tour was able to bring a lot of attention to the crypto currency (so far, we still have several meetups and a conference where we will speak)!

John has a preliminary list of accomplishments here: https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/proposal-dash-to-adoption-100-businesses-in-100-days.10348/#post-102270

You can also see an awesome comment from Roger Ver validating dash right here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dashpay/comments/4yqs0p/bitcoincom_bus_shunned_by_las_vegas_bitcoiners/

We have spent the dash we received growing the dash community, and I feel like we have done an excellent job! Funds well spent, team!

2.Have you heard of Brave New Books? Its more of a community center than a retail space. We provide radio studio space and stage space for free education of our community. It is a service we provide to the Austin community and we would LOVE to spend the next 3 months doing everything we can to grow dash locally. Our space is the perfect hub for such growth! The community is like minded and ready for this currency, our location on campus is ideal for student outreach, and our viability to traffic and pedestrians would cost incredibly more should you buy a billboard in the same place. This proposal specifically will allow us to pay staff to promote your currency and will bring great attention to Dash. This is a WIN for dash and a WIN for the bookstore. Mutually beneficial, which is a really good thing.

3. Boy could we use a personal piggy bank! If John and I are known for anything its giving ourselves away too much - we are activists at our core and have lived a life of service. We are super passionate about Dash and feel these proposals are a great way to spend our time while supporting the community space that we are the protectorates of (Brave New Books). We are GOOD at what we do and our time and energy is valuable. John is going to be giving this his all, and to be truly successful he needs to be able to feed his family while he goes all in. We live in a bus and have $0 rent. We are not asking for what a typical suburban family living in Austin would need to get by. It is yet another WIN WIN - a win for Dash and a win for the Blush family!

4. Adversarial toward bitcoin? We LOVE bitcoin, we live in the Bitcoin.com Bus. We are standing up to a bully, plain and simple. We are not the aggressor here, and we are not starting drama. We were sponsored to stop at meetups across the country and were silenced by a bully. I told Julian I would publish our conversation so our sponsors and supporters would understand why we had no meetup in Las Vegas. He said he would love for me to publish it, so I do not see how this is publicly shaming someone.. Not to mention the Austin meetup organizer declared his shunning of us on directly on facebook, that wasn't me, that was HIM publicly posting on facebook. In the end it spurred really fabulous conversations about Dash, nation wide. The situation was heartbreaking at first, but has become another WIN. We are not starting drama, we are responding tactfully and with grace. Instead of bashing them, belittling them, or acting in any way unprofessionally, we are telling people what happened and rising to the occasion.

5. John just did the math and with these proposals we will on average have received 6% of the Dash proposal budget for 4 months. That goes way down when you consider the full 2016 year. When you look up a good number for companies to spend on marketing, this is less than the industry average of 10-12%. I think this is an excellent way to grow the currency.

I think you will be pleased with the results of each of these projects. We are putting in a lot of time and energy and forgoing other opportunities to support ourselves so we can grow Dash. We are excited and honored to be a part of the Dash community.

Please let me know if this addressed your concerns or if you have any further questions! We are an open book :D

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TanteStefana-1 point,11 months ago

I can't believe you were shunned in another location! I'm simply shocked at that and that there was no outcry from participants. It kind of makes me sick actually. yes, you have my vote.

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DashAdvocate0 points,11 months ago

It seems that there are many many opportunities noted below where you could distribute the DASH: Detailed 'business' cards that Amanda and Pete have created and sent to many of us. I contacted Amanda and she said she can get you a bunch of cards. Please follow up with Amanda to get these, and distribute as many as you can. Albeit indirect - a nice bump in the YouTube subscription numbers would help support your effectiveness for future proposals.

Also, please take the opportunity to promote the Dash Slack group. They can get an invite at www.DashChat.co. We very often ask people that join Slack how they found us. So far, the majority mentions Amanda. But we will certainly notice if people start mentioning it is due to your Dash promotional efforts. That again will help support your effectiveness for future proposals.

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catherinebleish (proposal owner)0 points,11 months ago

We would love to get Dash cards to hand out! Where did she say this? Do you have contact info for her?

Are you wanting us to post our videos on your youtube channel? Is that what you are asking?

I am checking out the dash slack group right now :D

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DashAdvocate0 points,11 months ago

I asked Amanda in a private message before making the suggestion here.
You can reach Amanda at Amanda@Dash.org or via the Dash Slack at @amanda_b_johnson.
No, this is simply about handing out her business cards to promote the DASH:Detailed YouTube channel.